Thread: Gun City XR5 Night Vision goggles

Originally Posted by Yukon Optics NZ

No you are wrong. I only posted my grumble on this site to protect my interests from 'self proclaimed experts' who could potentially damage my family's income.

How would you like it if I started writing in this forum that Flir thermals are shit because they are only 9Hz, have crappy old VOx UFPA's, and are way overpriced for their performance? You wouldn't be too happy would you?

Also, we are in the process of sponsoring this forum.

Fair comment?

exactly not contributing

someone could have come up and said oh I have one of those, they are cool ... - same with you could have just offered the person if you think their opinion matters so much a demo - that would make them go quiet - jumping on every comment isn't going to help - the actual business in the title of this thread doesn't (often mentioned) and I'm pretty sure they still sell a bit of stuff

Its the same with everything - cars bet ya a bunch here are Ford Fans and others Holden and probably more that just don't care and they all won't agree on a bunch of things

And see there you go slinging stuff around - who knows how qualified you are! - really you are a scientist to explain the core differences! or just read the guff?
Plus actually they are not just 9hz (great statement); and how about why or even why more than 9hz doesn't it matter to most users in most uses? (sounds sooo familiar)-

Seriously even coming back and posting again proves a point

Great .. its a awesome forum - what I said applies to all suppliers nothing personal

-I don't see how it's my problem if your products don't stand up to criticism. It's not my problem that it's ~*your livelihood*~, just because you depend on hocking your stuff isn't going to stop me having an unbiased opinion

-$3000 for a N750 or $4500-6000 for a Gen3 sight depending on source, it's hardly That much more bloo bloo bloo

-Decent Gen3 is objectively waaay better at "seeing in the dark" by basically every performance metric, and that is the point of NV

-I object to statements such as was quoted saying "It's digital so it's better than Gen3" because it's not correct by any metric

-I have no incentive to exaggerate or mislead as I have no commercial stake in selling these products

-I don't even currently own any NV so bloo bloo bloo you're just trying to be elitist doesn't really apply

-3-3.5 hour battery life, x4 AA on N750.
-50 hour battery life, x1 AA on PVS14
-if I round it to 4 hours generously on N750 and assume $10 for 4x AA, then it's $62,500 lifetime batteries for N750, and $500 lifetime batteries for PVS14. 25000h MTTF, and 10000h MTTF, yes you can use rechargables of course but it's a hassle + major factor to consider

-10000h MTTF (gen3) is less compared to 25000h (digital, if that is the figure), but the power usage differential means you can buy like 10x gen3 units for the price of the batteries the digital unit uses (active vs passive! a giant IR illuminator chews power I guess). Buying Gen1 for savings is false economy since it can have ~1000h MTTF so you have to buy 10 of them to get ~ the same amount of use as 1 Gen3, and they don't work anywhere near as well for that 10,000h

-Similar resolution is irrelevant if you have 1/10th the gain and much worse S:N

-Requires masses of illumination to be marginally usable, may as well wave a spotlight around?

-Not even going to get into the issues of using a sight for target ID, "always point firearms in a safe direction, hmm"

-Goddamn your posts are like 95% logical fallacies and blathering

Originally Posted by Tasbay

I just sent 1 to a guy in Auckland today, Has never tried any NV in his life, was unsure (hell I would be) Hes paid for it and if he dosn`t like it he will get his money back........ Im pretty confident never had 1 sent back yet... 60+ sets so far.

Well that went well: Had a phone call 10pm last night from the Bloke up Auckland way mentioned above. Got his Goggles yesterday and tried them last night. Im always a little apprehensive with that first phonecall from someone who has never used NV and sprung alot of $$$ for a set. I asked him how they went and mentioned it was half moon here where I was and bright. He said Heavy cloud where he was and Bucketing down, Black as!!.
He had gone for his first wander in heavy rain (Keen!!) with the goggles and saw 3 Hinds and one Buck (Fallow). Reconed was able to walk up to around 25mts from the Buck. All without IR illumination.
Have to admit he was still buzzing from what I could tell. I mentioned from that I take it I can order another set then and got Hell yes Im keeping these.
No one will give a toss but thought I would mention it. Something positive after the last lot of posts.

Very interesting comments on the battery life Gimp. A lot of people including myself may not have even considered it.


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Originally Posted by R93

Very interesting comments on the battery life Gimp. A lot of people including myself may not have even considered it.


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I think mine stated something like 200hrs on 2AA for the Gen3. Its nothing like that but Im on about my 4th or 5th set of batteries since Before the twin towers were hit anyway. A couple of thoes sets of Batteries were nabbed out for use in a Mini maglite on occasions and replaced.

Hi all first post on this forum and something I don’t normally do.

This is my thoughts on and what I went through to get Night Vision

About four months ago I started looking into night vision for pest control work and not knowing were to start. Did a lot of reading on different forums including this one and also went to Gun City and asked what they had and what they thought and was shown what they had on hand and was not that impressed at all especially after seeing some of the stuff on Youtube.

Next move was to look around and see if I could find someone with some sort of NV.

I found a very helpful bloke in Tekapo who was good enough to invite me up to try it out his gear. He had N750 digisight and 38 thermal monocular. My first impressions were good and even managed to shoot some rabbits with the N750 thinking that was what I required. The 38 thermal really impressed me but I needed to see were I was walking and the monocular didn’t do that and have my hands free. I was still keen to try the real NV.

I managed to find tasbays phone number and a number for Yukon Optics who sells the N750 digisights and lots of other stuff just out of Nelson. I decided in the end to go and have a look for myself rang both numbers and found both people more than willing to show me what they had and what it could do.

Called tasbays phone number and went out so that he could show me what he and what he could get and made arrangements to go back that night for a look. I looked through one set of PVS-7 goggles not sure of Gen with the cover still on in day light to compared what I had seen at Gun City and the comparison was just unbelievable and now wanted to try them at night, also had a look through a NV riflescope with the cover on also better than expected.

Then rang Yukon Optics and went and looked at what he had with my main interest being in the N750 sight
Looked through a bit of different gear but with the N750 still being my main interest. I found that I had the same problem that I had in Tekapo with being able to see through the scope and had put this down to rifle set up. But after a bit of playing around and moving the head side to side I was not as happy as with looking through the true NV scope. I am not sure of the reasons for the sighting problem but have a couple of thoughts
1. You are looking at a screen with the digisight and a small field of view but may be better with lots of IR.
2. The digisight I don’t think is putting out as much light as the true night vision thus making it harder to see and line up your eye with the screen in the N750 also the NV has a far better field of view.
3. It could be just me.

Back out to tasbays and had a look through and play with
PVS-7 Gen 2+ goggles nice picture and good field of view but if you remove them from your eyes it takes a wee bit of adjusting due to the brightness
PVS-7 Gen 3 goggles very nice clearer picture and better all round than the Gen 2+ and the distance that you can see just amazed me.
NV Rifle scope. Easy to look through with good field of view and sight picture.
All of this was on a dark night and if you used a small amount of extra IR it made a big difference.

Ok I know that the price difference is a lot to most people but I think it is as the old saying goes you get what you pay for.
1. Digisight and that sort of gear is better than nothing and may suit some people very well but not me.
2. True night vision is better but costs more and you still need IR for eye shine
3. From the small amount of thermal that I have seen OH yes please but at 12000+ for a basic rifle scope out of my price range but there again I do have a lotto ticket for tonight yea right another weekly donation.

After all of this I ordered a PVS-7B Gen 3 what I got was a tube with a FOM 1427 and very nice to work with I don’t need IR to walk around with even on pitch-black nights. But I do need a small amount of IR for eye shine.
After getting the goggles I ordered a GS-26R Gen 2+ rifle scope which arrived two days ago but with the weather being what it is have only looked out the window and OH boy do I wish the weather would improve bloody quicker that what is.

I am try not to get in a slanging match and have tried to keep this a record of my thoughts and reasons for what I bought with the hope that it may help someone else and thank you to everybody that help with there time, information and thoughts.
I have not used personal names because I have not asked the people involved if I could but I do hope this helps someone in there quest in the future.

what did it end up costing ya?

for a first post that sure is a essay haha

20vt : Wow that was one hell of a first post. Was my pleasure,Thanks for the kind words. Any questions just contact me.

Bill999 : That set up. Similar to a Quad or Jetski.

20k ?

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Originally Posted by veitnamcam

20k ?

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Knock about 7 & a half K off that..... But for you Cam yeh $20K & Ill toss in 2AA batteries!!

That's very generous of you

Just wondered cos my ski cost me 20k as a ex demo around 10 years ago

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Originally Posted by faregame

exactly not contributing

someone could have come up and said oh I have one of those, they are cool ... - same with you could have just offered the person if you think their opinion matters so much a demo - that would make them go quiet - jumping on every comment isn't going to help - the actual business in the title of this thread doesn't (often mentioned) and I'm pretty sure they still sell a bit of stuff

Its the same with everything - cars bet ya a bunch here are Ford Fans and others Holden and probably more that just don't care and they all won't agree on a bunch of things

And see there you go slinging stuff around - who knows how qualified you are! - really you are a scientist to explain the core differences! or just read the guff?
Plus actually they are not just 9hz (great statement); and how about why or even why more than 9hz doesn't it matter to most users in most uses? (sounds sooo familiar)-

Seriously even coming back and posting again proves a point

Great .. its a awesome forum - what I said applies to all suppliers nothing personal

I agree with you.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

You both Know how to get hold of me if you want an impartial review

I'm really keen for you to do a side by side comparison with our Gen3 gear when we get the first shipment. It's not cheap, and I want to know if it cuts the mustard before I create a load of debt. I'm sure Darrin would find the info useful also.

So back to the Yukon N750 digital night vision. I had played with one before and wasn't impressed but I got to use one extensively this weekend. Some notes:

-Passive light amplification blows. Like it's non-existent.
-It chews batteries insanely fast
-Image quality sucks. I could barely tell the difference between wombats, kangaroos and rabbits in a small open paddock. The tiny field of view + magnification makes it hard to identify the size and range of objects and the image quality doesn't help. After a certain distance (maybe 60 meters ish) it was difficult to identify things beyond "a blob with some eyes reflecting the IR illuminator"
-The tiny field of view and magnification make it impossible to navigate with (can't see a hole in the ground at your feet)
-Image is shitty during the day, ie grass just washes out to a big white mass, no contrast
-The IR illuminator has a very visible red glow when turned on
-The controls are very poorly located, ergonomics suck, ie to focus you have to reach waaay forward with your right (trigger) hand. There are also like 5 little identical feeling control knobs which is irritating trying to work out which one you're twiddling in the dark
-It's huge and weighs a ton
-Bootup time of about 5 seconds, which sucks when you're navigating with NV goggles and the N750 off to conserve batteries
-Zeroing involves hilariously non-intuitive controls


No thanks. It sort of lets you see in the dark a little bit by the method of effectively "sticking a fucking big torch on it", but the image quality/light intensification suck, the controls and ergonomics suck and it's massive. Economically it's on the surface cheaper but you'll be recharging batteries like a motherfucker, and you need to buy a completely separate optic to navigate with. For about the price of, 1x N750 and 1x shitty set of Gen 1 or 2 goggles, you could buy a Gen3 PVS14 and an IR laser to chuck on your gat and it would just be way, way more fit for purpose

Hey Gimp,
If you are still looking for a Ruger 96/44 there is one on T/M at the moment........ Guy wants $650 for it. (31/1/14)